It is strange how, as you pass through this portal, the big city suddenly seems to fall off you. The noise is far away, the rush forgotten. And where just a few minutes ago, buses and taxis were shunting in the rush hour traffic and people were strolling in front of the shop windows, there is but wonderful calmness now: in an old city palace at the heart of Palma de Mallorca, in the just one year old luxury hotel Palma , in a building of the 16th century that was long used as a school.